Cover of Darkness by Gregory Delaurentis - VBT with Guest Post

WHAT WOULD I TELL A NEW AUTHOR?

What would I tell a new author? I have only one thing to admonish a new writer: Never give up. In other words, persevere and conquer. No matter the obstacle or opposition, don’t stop believing in yourself. And if you find that you can’t accomplish your goals one way, do it another. Just never stop. Never put down the weapon and never concede. Like a movie that I enjoyed immensely once said as a credo: “Never give up, never surrender.” That’s exactly how you must be if you want to be a writer, and if you want to be taken seriously. Notice something: I didn’t say, if you wanted to become a best-selling author, or make millions in the writing business, now did I? No, I didn’t. I said you must never give up if you want to be taken seriously. This is more important than anything else. Everyone is a writer. Everyone is writing a book today. Many people, the vast majority, claim that they have a book in them, but they never put pen to paper. They are not taken seriously. Then there is the other group who has a book in them and is in the process of writing it. Many of these will never finish this book. They are not taken seriously. Then there are those that DO finish their manuscripts, and then park them in a closet or attic to one day bring out and give to a publisher. They are not taken seriously. 

Then there are the writers who do send queries for their books out to publishers repeatedly, banging their heads against brick walls to be discovered. Here I hope you take my admonition to heart. Never give up. Never stop trying to get your work seen and heard. You are to be taken seriously and you will be in time. Even if a publishing house never finds you, or an editor or agent. Even if you build the courage to publish your book yourself, which is quickly turning out to be an increasingly acceptable route to take if you earnestly believe in yourself, never give up. Push until the wheels fall off the cart.

Never stop until you get your voice heard, and you will be taken seriously. 

And then you will be able to call yourself an author.

COVER OF DARKNESS 

By Gregory Delaurentis

BLURB:   

A high profile murder of a Wall Street executive in Westchester pits three people against the criminal underbelly of Manhattan nightlife. The key players are two ex-cops turned private investigators—Kevin Whitehouse, whose sharpest tool is his keen analytical mind, and David Allerton, a former Special Forces operative—and Margaret Alexander, Kevin’s lover. In their search for a killer, they are forced to travel to the edge of sanity and morality, while stumbling onto their own confusing secrets as well. The Cover of Darkness is a gritty noir saga that untangles a web of deceit in the course of tracking down a brutal murderer.

EXCERPT:

The pool area was wide and reflected the sun on this hot summer day. It was edged with white marble so polished that it looked like pearl. Deck chairs lined the sides of the long pool, which was two lengths more than Olympic-sized. Outside the deck area was the carpeted lawn of the vast backyard, dappled with sun. 

Hugh Osterman walked along the side of the pool wearing a heavy terry cloth robe and sandals. In his right hand, he held a martini glass. He ran his left hand through his sandy sun-streaked hair as he looked over his shoulder at the man following him. 

“What’s going on? I don’t get it,” Osterman said, stopping at the end of the pool where the flotation chairs were kept.

“They said no,” the man replied. Considering the backdrop, he was incongruously dressed in a dark suit and tie.

“They said no . . . just like that?”

Osterman sat his drink down on the marble surface, and pushed a flotation chair into the deep end of the pool, sending it out and away. Then he peeled off the robe and dove smoothly into the water, emerging next to the floating chair. 

“You go back and tell them that we aren’t pleased,” Osterman said sternly, pulling himself up and into the seat of the chair. “You tell them that Hugh Osterman wants to know what’s holding things up—what the problem is.”

The suit just stood at the edge of the pool, opening his jacket against the heat of the day. Osterman paddled to the side, and reached out and retrieved his martini glass. “I take it you have nothing to say about this?” he persisted, despite the other man’s silence.

The suit shook his head.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Osterman said as he tipped the glass up to his lips. Suddenly, the bottom of the stem shattered. Osterman gurgled as he dropped the glass, blood bubbling from his mouth, an open tear in his neck. He jolted upright in the chair as the suit closed the distance between them, his Colt .38 Super still trained on its victim, its silencer smoldering. 

Osterman slowly sat back as the suit pumped more rounds into Osterman’s bare, well-defined chest—the hot shells of his pistol ejecting out and striking the surface of the water, settling to the bottom. His life ended as his body tumbled from the floating chair, his blood a widening crimson slick roughly in the area where his body slipped through.

The suit popped his clip, slipped in a new one, and headed for the sprawling house.

:

AUTHOR INFORMATION:

Gregory Delaurentis spent his adult life roaming from job to job, working for Lockheed in California, various law firms in New York, and financial firms on Wall Street. Throughout this period of time, he was writing—unceasingly—finally producing a large body of work, albeit unrecognized and unpublished . . . until now. Cover of Darkness is the first in a series of upcoming books that include Edge of Darkness, Pale of Darkness and Cries of Darkness. These novels follow the lives of three individuals who do battle bringing criminals to justice, while they struggle to understand the complex relationships that exist among themselves. This intriguing trio has absorbed the attention of Mr. Delaurentis for the past year and a half, so much so he decided to self-publish their stories to bring them to a wider audience.

[AUTHOR’S DISCLAIMER: These are works of fiction. Name, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.]

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